Louisville, KY to Traverse City, MI - Day 2

Our first stop after leaving Davids was like two blocks from his house. We went to the Mary Alice Hadley factory. It is a cute little place where they make cute little dishes. Mary and her whole family collect them....the rest of us don't. BUT...Kat and I did get some cute little cards and a Christmas Tree ornament. Second stop was the Louisville Slugger Museum and oh how cool it was. There is a gigantic bat in front of the place...you cannot miss it. Inside you go through the museum and take a tour of them actually making bats. It was truly fascinating. Thanks Mandy for such a great idea. When the tour was over we were all given miniature bats. I brought mine home to Frank as one of his souvenirs. He loved it.  While we were in the museum we made pictures of the Mandy and Kat holding Micky Mantles bat, sitting in a dugout, hanging out with Babe Ruth and a few others.  We also took turns in a batting cage.  Let me tell you.  I have never been in one and when a baseball shoots out of a gun right at you it is scary....and when there is one times ten coming at you...one right after the other it is a little unnerving.  At least it was for me.  I am from the old days.  We practiced batting with a real live pitcher back in my softball days.

Kat and I hit baseballs, Mary hit softballs and believe me at 90 mph there was nothing soft about either of them.  It hurt!  Plain and simple!  My hands ached for about an hour after we left.  When we were through at the Slugger Museum we made a brief stop for Mandy to get her caffeine fix at Starbucks, which was just around the corner, and then jumped on interstate.  Our next big city was Indianapolis, IN.  We really just passed through this metropolis but we did get to see a lot of the sites from the interstate.  Our objective was to get to Grand Rapids or Lansing and reappraise how far we would go today.  Early afternoon found us in Grand Rapids and since it did not get dark up there til after 10 we decided to press on....but we were hungry and would have to find somewhere to eat.  We saw an advertisement on the side of the road for Rosies and a couple of other places so we decided it was a good exit to take.  There were three restaurants within walking distance of each other and they all looked pretty good.  We opted for a diner looking place called Rosies and are we glad we did.  Rosies is the Rosies that used to be on the Bounty paper towel commercial. You know the one...she was an older redheaded waitress...well...the dinner now has another claim to fame and that is that Guy Fiera from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives has been there. How cool is this. I told you yesterday that I am a food channel junkie and this was just the greatest news I had had all day. We ate in this very authentic 1950's style diner and the food and service were good.

After dinner we pressed on for Traverse City. We got there about an hour later and found the cutest hotel to stay in. It was called the Cherry Inn. Traverse City is known for their cherries and other fruits. Not only was the Inn cute...it was on Lake Michigan and the lake was awesome. This would be our most expensive hotel for the entire trip.  We conferred in the car, then checked in, found out we had a room with a view of the indoor pool and hot tub - whoopee, and then stepped outside to enjoy the evening air. It was 9:15 and the sun had not set yet. Imagine that. We took pictures of the hotel, the lake, the birds, the ducks, our feet, anything we thought was photo worthy. After our major overdosing on photos we went back inside and used the hotels internet, took a swim, and sat in the hot tub...then went to bed. Tomorrow would be our day for exploring. We would be gettin up early to go to the Mission Lighthouse, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and the Cherry Republic....so many cherries and fudge...so little time.

paper towel commercial.  You know the one...she was an older redheaded waitress...well...the dinner now has another claim to fame and that is that Guy Fiera from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives has been there.  How cool is this.  I told you yesterday that I am a food channel junkie and this was just the greatest news I had had all day.  We ate in this very authentic 1950's style diner and the food and service were good.  After dinner we pressed on for Traverse City.  We got there about an hour later and found the cutest hotel to stay in.  It was called the Cherry Inn.  Traverse City is known for their cherries and other fruits.  Not only was the Inn cute...it was on Lake Michigan and the lake was awesome.  We checked in, and stepped outside to enjoy the evening air.  It was 9:15 and the sun had not set yet.  Imagine that.  We took pictures of the hotel, the lake, the birds, the ducks, our feet, anything we thought was photo worthy.  After our major overdosing on photos we went back inside and used the hotels internet, took a swim, and sat in the hot tub...then went to bed.  Tomorrow would be our day for exploring.  We would be gettin up early to go to the Mission Lighthouse, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and the Cherry Republic....so many cherries and fudge...so little time.